Trends (2010): Firsts & Doubles

In celebration of Adult Empire’s 20th anniversary, we look at some of the porn trends and genres that shaped the company’s history. In this edition: FIRSTS & DOUBLES.

“I’ve always been a fan of firsts. When I look back, all of my favorite porn scenes are the ones where I did something for the first time [ . . . ] There’s a certain rush that comes only with the first time, and then it’s lost forever once it’s over.”

That’s how Asa Akira described the thrill of “firsts” in her bestselling memoir Dirty Thirty. If sales figures are any indication, her excitement is shared by porn fans across the globe. They’ve made first-themed porn one of the most popular adult genres. Whether it’s first anal, first interracial, or something more exotic, scenes that break new ground for a particular star are now entrenched as important benchmarks. The rise of social media has allowed fans to have a closer day-to-day connection to stars, which in turn creates more anticipation for each star’s various on-screen firsts. (Bottom Dweller: The Final Voyage is the oldest title in Adult Empire’s archive to advertise a “first anal” on its cover. In the mid-2000s, beginning with Elegant Angel and other large studios, advertising “first anal” on box covers became a standard practice.)

For a long time, anal and interracial were the “first” scenes most frequently spotlighted. In recent years, other more specific acts have also become part of the first parade. This trend reached its apex in Angela White’s signature series, which focuses on a series of firsts in each installment. This has included common firsts like interracial but also more obscure ones such as creampie. It has also created a zeal for envelope-pushing firsts like double anal, double penetration, and even “airtight” (all holes filled). Adriana Chechik had the unusual distinction of being one of the few stars to experience a first “triple anal,” in HardX‘s Gangbang Me.

With porn constantly coming up with new firsts to ”re-virginize” stars, is there any danger of exhausting all the possibilities of these rites of porn passage? Not likely, according to Angela White in a 2016 interview with Adult Empire. “Luckily, when it comes to sexuality, you can never really do it all. There’s always something new. There’s always something more you can include. It might not necessarily be making it more extreme, which is what people expect [ . . . ] but sometimes it’s just changing the paradigm or doing something that people didn’t expect,” she said.